Manual play electronic visual games are well-known in the art. Representative disclosures of typical electronic visual games, and associated display circuitry, can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,631,457 to Hamada, et al.; 3,659,284 to Rusch; 3,659,285 to Baer, et al.; and 3,793,483 to Bushnell. The typical manual play electronic visual game is of the hockey or Ping-Pong variety. The game is adapted to be played by a pair of players. Each player has a control unit, which he can use to control a cursor or paddle image, which is movable on a television or cathode ray screen. The cursor usually can be controlled in a single direction of movement only (for instance, up and down). The game circuitry also generates a puck or ball image, commonly a small square, which moves across the screen or "playing field". The circuitry which controls the ball calculates angles of incidence and reflection to duplicate as closely as possible conditions under which an actual hockey game might be played. The players are able to move their paddles along a single direction in order to deflect the moving square back into the other player's field of play. Normally, if the moving square and the cursor of a particular player do not intersect, the moving square moves behind the cursor; and a point is scored in favor of the opposite player. Thus, games similar to tennis, Ping-Pong or volleyball can be played.
Other more complicated games involve games somewhat similar to hockey in that they involve making a shot in a particular specified goal area in order to accrue points. In these types of games, each of the players commonly controls a forward cursor and a number of rear cursors, which can act as blocking cursors. However, the basic principles of the game remain the same.
The prior art games, however, do not provide a means by which a pair of players who are playing at different levels of skill can have an interesting, competitive game. In other words, the player who is of superior skill will, in the ordinary course of events, win a greater number of games than the player of lesser skill. Of course, both the player of superior skill and the player of lesser skill will soon tire of the game since neither will be able to find competitors who will given them a good game at their level of skill.
What is needed, then, is a device which will allow a handicap to be automatically placed on a particular game. The handicap should only be engaged, however, when there is a certain size score differential between the players. The handicap should also be removed from the player when the score differential of the players, having once been large, returns to a smaller preselected value.